Time Shenanigans
by defying3reason
Summary: Gryffindor fifth year Remus Lupin is accidentally blasted to the future, where he has to figure out how to get himself back to the past while avoiding his future self.


_A/N: Hey howdy everyone. This fic is a (late) birthday present for my little cousin. Hope you like it, and hope you had a magnificent birthday with all of your more timely celebrations :) I'll have the next chapter up as soon as I can._

__**Time Shenanigans, Chapter One  
**

_**1975**_

"Try it. Come on, just try it."

"I don't know…I think this spell needs a little more work."

"None sense. We read half the Hogwarts library to get this done, and some of the really scary books I nicked from my dad's private library. It'll work, it'll work. Just try it."

"If you're so bloody sure it's going to work why not try it on yourself?"

"…that is a valid question. Perfectly valid, actually. I'll give you an answer after you try it."

Remus pulled his pillow over his head and rolled away from the only-quiet-if-you-weren't-a-werewolf whispers. As he very much was a werewolf, recovering from a terribly recent full moon and with his better than human senses unusually heightened, his friends were pulling him from sleep that his body desperately wanted.

He was considering casting a silencing charm on the both of them when there was a sudden flash of blinding light as James finally tried whatever Sirius had been goading him to do.

"Holy hippogriffs!" Peter squeaked. "Is Remus' bed supposed to be glowing like that?"

"Possibly…" Sirius muttered, sounding none too sure. "Prongs, I think we might have bollocksed this."

"What did you do?" Remus groaned. He was surrounded by very bright light, and though it was tempting to fling open the bed curtains, he was also sure he'd rather not know exactly what was going on until the danger passed.

Sadly, this was how more Saturday mornings began than not when you shared a dorm with the cleverest rule breakers in Hogwarts history.

He heard the sound of rustling parchment as James and Sirius hurriedly looked through their notes, then a creaking sound as Sirius confidently shifted posture. "Right, I think we've got it now. Moony, you might want to close your eyes for this. Okay, on the count of three-"

"What are we doing on the count of three?" James asked.

Sirius made an impatient noise. "Did you look at the notes or didn't you?"

"I did."

"Right, then on the count of three I'll hit it with Invisibility and you do hover. That ought to nudge this mixture of spells into the right direction."

"At least the Patroni are still there. That's a good sign, isn't it?"

Well that explained the blinding light.

Wait.

"Did you just say Patroni?" Remus asked. He rubbed at his eyes with the heel of his hand and fell back on his pillows, suddenly just too damn tired to contemplate what his friends had done. "You cast multiple patronus charms around my bed?" Was that even possible?

"Yes. You know how you can turn them into messengers?" James asked. Remus made a weary but affirmative sound. "Well we thought you might be able to use them as a base to carry spells you want to…well sort of jumble together."

"And the end result?" Remus asked.

"If we did this right? Time travel," Sirius said.

"Time travel?"

"Time travel," James said.

Remus let out a lengthy exasperated groan. "But there's already a way to do that! Haven't you ever heard of time turners!?"

"Well yes, but they're very strictly controlled by the Ministry," James whined.

"Even my horrible relatives don't have any I can nick," Sirius added. "And they're fussy little things to try to build, so in the absence of them we've had to make do with our own ingenuity."

"Why do you want to time travel?" Remus asked.

"Because it'll be fun," James said brightly, as though that were a legitimate answer for taking on dangerous experimental magic in a dorm room while your exhausted friend was trying to recover his strength after a vicious full moon. "And after this, all we need to do is make one of those screwdriver things."

"And enchant a phone box," Sirius added.

Remus groaned again, and was briefly tempted to go and yell at Lily Evans for introducing the purebloods to television. "Can you move the patroni away from my bed so I can go back to sleep?"

"Um…possibly. Okay, hold on." Sirius tried a few different methods, but the blinding light didn't move. "Uh, no. Looks like we'd have to dissipate them and recast."

"Well I suppose you'd better do that."

"But Remus, it took us all morning to make those and now we're all knackered! Just let us finish tweaking our spell and then we'll let you alone."

"Yeah, be a mate, won't you?"

"But, but…please?" Remus tried, knowing it was impossible to argue with the combined wills of James Potter and Sirius Black.

"You know Remus, the sooner you let them get this over with the sooner you can go back to sleep," Peter added.

"Fine, just blow my sodding bed up so I can sleep," Remus grumbled.

"That's the spirit!" James said. "So Pads, you do Invisibility high and I'll do Hover low?"

"Sounds good to me. One…two…three!"

His bed didn't blow up, which was Remus actually expected to happen (but Lily Evans was only a shout away, and a damn good healer so he wasn't as concerned as he might have been).

However, the patroni closed around him, and with another flash that left spots on his vision for the next few minutes Remus was transported…back to the dorm room from the looks of it.

The patroni were gone, and so were his roommates.

"Sirius? James? …Peter?"

Remus climbed out of his bed, and then started. Everything was still in Gryffindor colors, but that very much wasn't his bed. And there were five beds instead of four.

He inspected the room, noticing that all of his and his friends' things seemed to have been replaced by the belongings of a different set of teenage boys. His first thought was that James and Sirius had somehow made the patroni apparate him to another dorm room, but then he looked at a piece of parchment that had been dated.

They'd sent him to the future.

"Oh bloody hell. You've got to be fucking kidding me."

He scanned over the rest of the parchment, looking for further clues to his current predicament, but he was too distracted by how horrifically awful Ronald B. Weasley was at Defence homework. Without thinking, Remus corrected all his mistakes or referred him to the appropriate chapter in his book, the way he always did for Peter, and then set the parchment back at the end of the boy's bed.

Remus borrowed a set of robes from one of the strange boys so he wouldn't be wandering around future-Hogwarts in his pajamas, and then he stumbled out of the room.

He still desperately wanted a nap, but obviously that wasn't an option. James and Sirius hadn't let him be privy to any of the planning around this particular bit of experimental magic, so he had no clue how to get himself back where he belonged. He couldn't just sit in some stranger's bed and wait for his friends to come through time to find him. If he wanted to get home, he was going to have to do it himself.

* * *

"Now what did we learn today Ronald?" Hermione asked in a patronizing tone. Ron snarled something inaudible but unmistakably nasty at her in response (it was hard to understand him while his face was still swollen). "Not much, I see."

"I learned that if you want to antagonize someone in Potions class, you shouldn't let them have a clear shot at your cauldron," Harry put forth, only smirking slightly.

"Very good Harry," Hermione said brightly. She poked Ron's elbow. "So let's try this again Ron. Not only is it a terrible idea to stoop to Malfoy's level in Potions, when he has professor Snape looking out for him and helping him bully whoever he wants, but if you're going to stoop to the said horrible level, you should not…"

Ron warbled something out that sounded vaguely like 'leave my cauldron unattended'.

"Very good. Because then he…"

His response contained the words splatter spell, and she considered the lesson learned.

Ron had had some kind of horrible allergic reaction to something that had been in his potion, and it had caused his face to erupt in painful swellings and blisters that had burst, showering his skin and robes with pus. His friends would have been enraged on his behalf, but they'd been trying to take their usual table in the back of the room and Ron had insisted on sitting in the front by the door so they could leave as soon as possible after the lesson was over. He'd thought the new strategy was a sound one.

Frankly, Hermione and Harry felt he'd gotten what he deserved. They'd been in range of Ron's blistery concoction as well, and some had hit Harry, but thankfully his reaction had been incredibly minor and easily cleared up by Madam Pomfrey (thus the conclusion that Ron had an allergy).

They were on their way to Gryffindor Tower so Ron could change. Hermione and Harry lingered around the common room while they waited for him, and after rather more time than they expected to simply change clothes, Ron finally returned, wearing trousers that were quite a bit too short for him.

"Someone stole my clothes!" Ron yelled. "As though this day couldn't get worse. I bet it was Fred and George."

"Why would they steal your clothes?" Harry asked.

"To irritate me, obviously."

"It appears to be working. Come on, let's hurry up and get supper. We've got loads of homework to get through tonight," Hermione reminded them. Harry and Ron groaned, but dutifully followed after her as she led the charge towards the Great Hall.

They were stopped in the Entrance Hall by professor Lupin, who almost missed them as he passed by with his eyes on a piece of parchment, mumbling to himself. "Hermione, may I have a quick word?"

"Of course," Hermione answered. Harry and Ron stood awkwardly behind her, very aware of the fact that they hadn't been addressed, but then, Lupin hadn't stepped away from them either.

"I was wondering if you might help me, er…I suppose tutor's the best word for this. It's just, I'm having a problem with one of the second years, and you're remarkably gifted at breaking down magical concepts and explaining them to your classmates."

"You want me to tutor one of your students?" Hermione repeated, a huge smile breaking out on her face. "Oh but professor, that's a big responsibility! I mean sure, I've read a few books," here Ron rolled his eyes and mouthed 'a few', "but I don't have your kind of experience. If you haven't been able to help this student, what makes you think I can?"

"I'm not sure anyone can," Lupin said, sounding uncharacteristically cynical for a moment. "But I've got to try something, and I thought one of her peers might…well anyway, would you mind coming up to my office with me after supper and giving it a try? I'll exempt you from tomorrow's quiz if you do."

"We've got a quiz tomorrow?" Ron asked.

Professor Lupin turned to face him. "Yes we do. I've announced it several times, in fact. I'll take a cue from professor Dumbledore and go momentarily deaf if you'd like."

Ron very much appreciated it as he let out a string of curses.

"Now really Ron, why do you think I was so insistent that we get to the library and revise first thing tonight?" Hermione huffed.

"Because you're you?"

"He's got you there," Harry said.

"Professor Lupin, I'd be happy to talk to this student with you, and I don't think I need to be exempted from the quiz to do so."

"Can I have her exemption then?"

Professor Lupin chuckled under his breath, made arrangements with Hermione to meet him after dinner, and then wished them goodbye. The three Gryffindors headed into the Great Hall, Ron dragging his feet a bit as he went.

"Why'd he laugh? I really meant it."


End file.
